Comment Archives: stories: Music

Kent Lewandowski, It's a good question. According to the feasibility study, an additional convention center in Oakland wouldn't bring enough revenue; almost all convention centers in the country operate at a loss, the study says. The report also says the Kaiser fails to meet true convention center criteria, since it doesn't have enough "breakout rooms" and so on.

I'm unclear why convention use is ruled out? With tech companies coming to town, they want and need space to host user conventions. Currently I believe the only space in Oakland is the Marriott Convention center.

I remember as a child and young adult attending Oakland Symphony concerts in the Calvin Simmons Theater. The acoustics and sight lines are the finest in the Bay Area. I hope other Oakland Council members will support Rebecca Kaplan and that this wonderful venue can be brought back to life.

History repeats repeats repeats-- #1 When Occupy was shoved off the Plaza 5 years ago, a huge, huge crowd of everbody showed up to protest and march back there. Cops from 13 jurisdictions had been called to stop this community--all kind of folks--from getting there. Pleasanton then too. Then, #2 When we got to 14th and Broadway it was fenced and lined with cops in SWAT gear 20 deep. A mumble on the PA, teargas shot in every direction simultaneously. Parents with strollers and toddlers and dogs were a few feet away. Many of us ran to gather them up and pull them away--many of the people wanting to support Occupy were terrified, confused. And many were sick. Children included.

Hey, I'm a very old Gilman person. I go back almost, but not quite as far as Kamala. I completely disagree with the approach that takes hold at Gilman from time to time of trying to correct the worlds problems by policing the bands on the stage.
I disagree with a lot of the more offensive things that Mike Avilez and Sammytown say. But they are songs, not actual criminal acts. Mike is someone I consider a friend. I've put on shows with him. And when his bands played certain fucked up songs, I called him out for it. I never pulled a stunt like cutting the the power to the PA or turning up the house lights. I told him to his face that I found a song offensive.

Mike is also someone who has put a ton of work into putting on shows all over the Bay Area. Many in bars like the Stork Club but also in underground venues like Burnt Ramen.
His bans invariably suck, but the boy has heart.

Punk is offensive. It is crude. It has ugly warty nasty parts. It always has. If you clean up all the bands so that they can't say or do anything offensive, you have a nice polite, staid situation, which is not what those originators of punk were ever about.
Could Patti Smith play "Rock and Roll Nigger" at Gilman?
Could The Dead Kennedys play "Kill the poor", "I kill children" or pretty much half of their songs on their first two records?

That said, gay, black, trans, women, latino, and asian people should feel welcome at Gilman. Punk is too often a bunch of white boys beating their brains out and acting like macho dorks.
In my interpretation of the Gilman rules we did not tolerate fascist, racist or homophobic bullying. But you can say anything you want.
Which as Jesse relates, often amounted to not allowing people with rebel flag patches in the door.

After all Gilman is mostly young teen age people, who are figuring out who they are. You might see a kid with a mohawk one week, skinhead the next week, and skater a month later. I don't think it''s right to be ordaining rigid rules and policies in very important meetings at what is basically the longest running cool kid clubhouse east of the Mississippi.

And seriously, it is just a dumb fucking clubhouse. Oh no, you might get 86-ed! I did!

Great article about a great guy. I won a meet and greet for the Berner show. Tim handled the entire meet/greet. He let me bring my crew and arranged for us to meet Kool John also. I mentioned I liked another Bay Area rapper and he faced timed right there on the street. Mad respect to this OG from this OG.

Growing up in a setting of poverty and hopelessness can torture a person's psyche and make them feel like there's no way out but violence. But poverty didn't force these kids to pocket their pistols when heading out to the party. They made that decision. This was no accident.

This isn't a case of robbing a store to feed a starving family. This isn't a case of desperation or necessity. This is a case of hot-headed kids with guns they shouldn't have, whose value for human life has been crushed so low that being "disrespected" (or whatever other bullshit happened in that argument) is enough cause for them to murder without a second thought.

The gun-packing kids could probably be considered victims on a societal level and their social setting certainly helped to corrupt them this way—but there is also an inner evil here that must be considered if we ever hope to expunge it and end this random violence.

"Taste Of India" is the third album from the ever prolific artist, musician, teacher and healer known as BEAST NEST (aka Sharmi Basu) . "Taste Of India" continues in the vain of her sophomore release "Songs For Puppies" but focusing even more on the drone, ambient side of her practice leaving behind the harsher cuts for future considerations. "Taste of India" is a nearly forty minute journey through lush, harmonizing tones, breathing, humming synthesizers , hissing, spacious dripping oscillators pulsing a pleathora of micro tonal structures of healing, relaxation, trauma, horror and so much more. Beast Nest is one of the most underrated projects in the bay area and it's time you got hip to it. We at RATSKIN are more than honored to release this beautiful, complicated, cavernous sound work into the world.

BEAST NEST is Sharmi Basu's primary performing project. She utilizes an unwavering depression & restrained horror to channel left-eyed spirits. While simultaneously clearing and entering, the sewage pipes of the body and the patriarchy congeal into watery soundscapes as a vehicle for achieving liberation through the darkest of fears.
All music composed, produced, and performed by Sharmi Basu